The Scent of the Stars
by Polished Sterling
Summary: Driven by her dreams and nightmares, a young lioness leaves her pride to try and find a way to stop the visions. T for some mild graphic content.
1. Prologue

Prologue

…_and so Light One followed Dreamer to the edge of the world, where he could look down and see reflected in him, as in all of us, the faces of the gods. And Dreamer called up the wind to carry the gods down from heaven, and in that sacred place Light One spoke to his father and reclaimed his true name. Simba, the first lion, born of the sun._

_He returned across the sea of fire to the stone that stands open like a lion's mouth, the Pride Rock. The light of the gods shone on him and the breath of the Great God, Mufasa, was in his roar. He drove out the hyena, and wrestled Dark One, called Scar, to the very jaws of hell. The fight was long, roaring like a spring river until they split the earth with their rage. Simba drove Dark One to the edge and over, and the fires of hell closed around Dark One like the jackal's teeth._

_Simba led the First Pride, from whom all of us descend. His land is the land of Ayotunde, from which we are exiled until Mufasa's roar calls us home to paradise…_


	2. You Must Promise

Chapter One

Chidi was falling behind again. Kimfa gave a little growl and hopped in a tight circle. Dry savanna grass pricked her pads and crunched under her anxious feet, huffing more dust into air that tasted like sun-baked bone already. The mud smeared artistically on Kimfa's butter-yellow coat was starting to dry—it didn't look even remotely like blood any more.

"Come _on _Chidi! Mufasa's _dung, _you're slow! How can Light One storm Pride Rock if his lionesses can't even keep up?"

Chidi crested the little hill and flopped down beside her. The mud barely showed against his woody brown coat. "Why do I have to be a lioness? I'm always the lioness. I'm not even a girl. You're a girl. I don't like this story."

"Only because Tau called firsties on Dark One." Kimfa pawed at her friend impatiently. "Get up, won't you? We have to rescue Light One's mother!"

He rolled onto his back. "But the rock doesn't look anything like a lion's open mouth, and where are the hyenas? It's no fun without hyenas."

"Kibwe can be the hyenas as soon as we rescue her!"

The rock did not, in fact, look anything like a lion's open mouth. It barely rose a foot from the ground and was as flat-topped as a watering hole. The peak of dry season spread around them in a gold and brown-smudged haze. Through air that rippled like a lava flow, Kimfa glimpsed the moving black mass of a herd on the run. She sucked air through her open mouth. Zebra, antelope, or wildebeest? At this distance is was impossible to tell.

"Is Chidi being boring again?"

Tau, Chidi's younger, darker brother, and Kibwe, another pride cub, sat waiting on the rock. Tau was on his back, looking at them upside down. He stretched and rolled onto his stomach.

"He's not. He's just tired." Kimfa growled, smacking Chidi protectively. "You know how he gets."

Tau grinned. "You mean as slow as a limping wildebeest?"

Chidi rolled back over. He looked hurt. Kibwe started to laugh, but Kimfa snarled. Kibwe dropped into immediate submission.

"Play nicely, bratlings."

All four cubs jumped as a young lioness crested the hill. She licked blood from her muzzle and sniffed at them. "Mocking Light One again, dung-grubbers?"

"What do _you _want, Masozi?" Kimfa squared her shoulders and glared at their older counterpart. Masozi had not completed a lone hunt yet—Kimfa didn't _need _to respect the dusty-brown lioness. The other cubs took their cue from Kimfa. They stepped up behind her and glared defiantly up at the older, larger animal.

Masozi eyed Kimfa for a moment longer before flicking her tail and turning around. "Farai told me to come for you—she and the others got a big kill. She wants you to get your share."

Light One's glorious struggle to free his pride was immediately forgotten in the mad scramble past Masozi down the hill.

  


The smell of blood was in her nose. It swamped her. She wanted to rip, wanted to tear, wanted to kill. Kimfa felt the heat of the pride around her and snarled them back. This was hers. This was hers.

She sank her teeth through fur into liquid and meat and shook it like a rag doll. She was alone at it now, alone at it now—she was tearing Chidi to pieces.

Sick green thunderheads rolled across the sky and red lightning flashed down. The Serengeti blazed with purple flames, spreading and rolling and lapping at the foot of a mountain, a throne of stone that stood like a lion's open mouth. She sank her teeth into Chidi's neck and woke up to her own cries.

It was night, and her mother was pressed closed to her. Kimfa tried to gasp back panic as Farai's rough tongue scraped across her scalp. The faintest of breezes breathed cool sighs through the acacia trees that shaded the cats during the day. Now the pale yellow blossoms looked like blind eyes on the branches. Her mother licked Kimfa's ear gently. The grass bobbed in a dazed little dance around them and the air tasted like giraffe musk--the animals were close, probably half-sleeping with an ear toward the lions.

"What is it, my lovely? What's wrong?"

"Momma," Kimfa said, and pressed her face against Farai's stomach. "I don't want to sleep any more."

Farai licked her gently until she calmed down. She could feel the rest of the pride around them, grumbling and shifting in their own dreams. But no one had dreams like hers. No one but the _kahini _Ramla, the oldest lioness in the pride, would even listen to Kimfa tell them any more. Kimfa listened as her mother's breathing grew slow and steady again. She looked up at a sky that was as much light as shadow, a zillion eyes for a million gods gleaming faintly down at her. It was reassuring, it was always reassuring, to know that she wasn't alone in the night.

A lion-shaped shadow paced over. Kimfa looked up into the green eyes of _kahini _Ramla. The lioness was gray with age. She tilted her head to one side, inspecting Kimfa silently. She turned to walk away and said, "Come with me, child."

Kimfa went. They walked to the edge of the clearing of flattened grass where the pride slept, past Ruda—Ramla's sister and the lead female. Tafari and Kgosi, the brother lions that ruled the pride, were asleep where the long grass started. Kimfa hesitated to walk by them. Ramla ghosted past without concern. Kimfa darted after her, tail between her legs. She didn't like the big lions, and they had no patience for the cubs.

"Tell me what you dreamed."

Kimfa had been looking back toward Tafari and Kgosi, wondering if they would wake up. She nearly walked into the old lioness. Ramla had stopped at the edge of a pounded track that led to the nearest watering hole. The world around them was blue and white and quiet; Ramla herself looked almost the same color as the acacia blossoms. Baboons called somewhere in the dark. They were too far away to be a nuisance or a threat. Ramla turned her milky eyes on Kimfa, and the little lioness checked and stepped back.

"What are you talking about?"

Ramla showed one fang in a cynical smile. "You dream as strong as I did, once. I could feel it across the clearing—I could smell smoke and blood on your fur. Tell me what you dreamed."

Kimfa told her. She could never disobey _kahini _Ramla. Ramla was the only lioness that Kimfa would follow without question. When she finished, Ramla was quiet for a long time. The wind picked up slowly and carried the scent of the pride--Farai, Chidi, Tau, Kibwe... Theirs mothers and the other lionesses, and the heavy smell of their kings.

Ramla and Kimfa watched the stars together. Kimfa strained to see them blink at her, wondered which of the thousands were the eyes of the Great God Mufasa.

"You must tell me what you dream, little one." Ramla turned to look at her, and for one dazzled moment Kimfa thought she saw the moon in the old lioness's eyes. "You must come to me when you feel uneasy and don't know why. You must come to me when the water whispers to you and the wind calls your name. Come and tell me, come and talk to me. Understand?"

Kimfa bumped her head affectionately against Ramla's leg. "Yes, _kahini._"

She felt a rough tongue against her scalp and felt the heat of breath tainted with old meat and fresh blood.

The wind stayed steady until morning. It carried the welcome possibility of a storm. It also carried the pride's scent to the animals waking on the plain. Kimfa heard the whoop of a zebra and felt the rhythm of a small herd's flight.

The sun was leaching the light from the stars when Ramla stood and turned back toward where the pride slept. Kimfa, half-caught in a daydream, didn't hear what the older lioness was saying. She shook herself and trotted after Ramla.

"What?"

The old lioness looked down at her and smiled in the way a tired mother smiles at an energetic cub. "Nothing, little one." She glanced up at the fading stars and away. A thrumming roar announced a grumpy morning tussle between the two kings.

"Remember to tell me, Kimfa. You must promise you'll never forget."


	3. Stampede

Chapter Two

It was two days before Ruda called Kimfa to see her. She called Kimfa to the same place that Ramla had taken her, very different in the day. The sun was at its quarter mark in the sky, crisping the land below. The smell of thunderstorms had moved on—it was a dry year. The heavy smell of fresh dung shimmered low to the ground, stirred by the breeze every so often. The zebra had bolted after the pride took one of their number down that morning—Kimfa could smell the carcass, and the musk of the buzzards that hovered around it.

Ruda sat under a twisted acacia tree. Every time the grass moved Kimfa could see the watering hole past its green-gold screen. It was one of the deepest Kimfa knew of. By dry season's end it would be the only watering hole in miles that had anything in it, if this weather kept on. It was the only promise the lions had that the zebra would come back.

Ruda eyed her as Kimfa approached. Normally the old lioness treated the cubs with the same distant regard as the king lions—it was the lesser lionesses job to care for them. Ruda was just slightly younger than her sister. Where Ramla looked old and grand and untouchable, Ruda looked tired. Her dusty yellow-brown coat drooped between her ribs. Her eyes were misty with cataracts. The smell of mud and unwashed animal floated around her in a haze that mingled with the heat waves of the savanna afternoon. She was old, older than Kimfa's mother—Farai was from Ruda's first litter.

"My sister tells me you have the gods' eyes on you. What do you say to that?"

When Ruda opened her mouth Kimfa smelled rotting. Her teeth were mossy and yellow where they hadn't fallen out. Ruda smelled like an animal waiting to die.

Kimfa said nothing. She huddled down as far as she could without seeming disrespectful. Ruda gave a rusty chuckle.

"No, I'm not pretty, am I? I don't live trying to see the wind, cub. I've lived by claw and tooth and paw. I will die when these old paws can't bring down a kill or drive the buzzards off a carcass. I live as a _lion, _cub."

The stirring grass sounded like crickets warming up their wings. Dust scuttered against Kimfa's face and she sneezed. Ruda stood up and looked off over the grass. "The pride fears a seer. They _respect _a leader. Farai is your mother—she will rule after me. And who comes to power after she does? She chooses, or her children fight for the position. Dreams are like smoke, cub. They sting your eyes and warn of fire coming. But only your paws can carry you out of the danger. Dreams save no one. Learn to fight."

Ruda brushed the long grass aside and was gone. Kimfa sat as the dust swirled around her. She could hear Ruda in it, faintly, like a buzzing of a mosquito's wings.

_My sister tells… pretty… as a lion… respect… Farai…power… fight… learn to fight._

Kimfa shivered. It felt like the breeze was making fun of her. She heard a tussle coming through the grass and Tau and Chidi both burst through at the same time. They were shoving, each trying to get to her first. Tau won.

He pranced from foot to foot eagerly. "Did she threaten you? Did she say she was going to _eat _you? Is she going to punish Ramla?"

Kibwe plunged through after them. "Tau! Is she dead? Ruda didn't smell bloody."

"I'm _fine,_" Kimfa growled. Kibwe checked and dropped onto her stomach. Kimfa growled again, out of patience with the world and the breeze that seemed to be throwing bits of their conversation back at her just for its amusement. "Stop twitching. You're worse than Chidi on a sulk."

Chidi flinched, and Kimfa immediately regretted it. She bumped her head against his shoulder and he stepped away. Aggravated, she tackled him. Tau whooped and joined in as Kibwe ran circles around them. Chidi managed to squirm his way out of it. Tau and Kimfa went at it with gusto, flipping and rolling and scattering dust until Kimfa could hear nothing but Tau's huffing and Chidi coughing the background.

In the end, Tau won, just like he always did. This time though, instead of rolling off of her immediately and doing an arrogant little victory dance around them while Kibwe urged him on, he did something strange. Kimfa lay exhausted and cheerful on her back as he looked down at her for a long moment, leaned in, and bit her nose gently. She yelped and rolled over and took him with her. He tumbled to his feet and bolted for the watering hole.

"Race you! Race you!"

Chidi hesitated. Kibwe was already gone. Chidi looked at her for a second, upset, before loping halfheartedly into the grass.

Kimfa lost. She'd never lost a race to Tau before.

Rain drilled the dirt on Kimfa's coat into a thin coating of mud. When the wet season ended, her lone hunt would begin. Tau would be first, then Chidi, then Kimfa, and finally Kibwe. Masozi wouldn't be able to lord her age over them any more. In the eyes of the pride, they would be equals. Masozi would have her own cubs to worry about soon—that was a strange, very strange thing to think about.

The rest of the lions slept behind her in a little pocket of semi-sheltered land, a mix of stone and close-growing trees that sheltered them from the worst of the weather. Farai had led them there after Ruda died. The old lioness had kept them in the same spot for years until the game thinned out and they were near starving. Ruda died snarling at her daughter's wish to move them to greener land.

Ramla sat beside Kimfa. The young lioness would not be able to have cubs of her own for several years yet, though the kings already eyed her when she passed. Tau—sometimes even Chidi—would snarl them off, but after the lone hunts she wouldn't have their protection any more. They'd be driven out. Kimfa felt a wrench and growled. The sky growled with her, and forks of lightning rippled their way across the bellies of the clouds like outstretched claws.

She could smell mud and rain and wet lion, flavored by the heady green of grass and trees. The world burst into life and the animals settled down. Wherever they were was where they would be until the earth shriveled again into the dry season.

She and Ramla sat side by side as the wind blasted rain into their eyes. The old lioness was nearly blind now. Kimfa had been hunting for her for the past month—practicing she called it. She hated seeing Ramla fading. She old lioness hadn't withered, like her sister. She was just slowly turning into a ghost, to be carried away by the wind some lonely day without anyone even realizing it. Kimfa blinked. She closed her eyes and listened.

Zebras chiding each other on this and that, huddling close around their young and scolding in nasal voices. Kimfa tipped her head out of that draft and caught another. Elephants, this one, grumbling to each other about the state of the savannah, what the plains have come to, my my my my my. Kimfa growled and shook her head again.

Ramla chuckled quietly beside her. "Patience, cub. Sometimes the important things will just pass by if you don't wait to catch them."

Kimfa liked the dreaming better. The dreaming was grand—it made her feel separate, more than her year-mates. It impressed the older lionesses and made the new cubs tread soft around her. She would tell Kibwe and Chidi and Tau of her dreams and scare Kibwe and laugh at her fear. Even if she was scared herself. Even if she woke up to keep from screaming. Chidi always looked a little sad. Tau would just smile at her, watching her with his head on his crossed paws.

Kimfa opened her eyes and looked up at the clouds, glowing and snarling as they rolled overhead. They looked as round and heavy as a king lion's paws. She snarled into the wind, then roared, and Ramla shifted.

"Kimfa…" The old lioness turned her face toward her pupil. Kimfa looked straight into her near-white eyes and stared like a cub at the raindrops rolling across them. It looked like the moon had cast its light over her pupils. Ramla had always been the moon.

"Kimfa…"

"Yes?"

The old lioness looked away. "You must learn patience in this. You must learn to wait and to watch and to reason. You are not like the rest of the pride."

Kimfa squared her shoulders and raised her head. "I know that, Ramla. I—"

"This is not a fight to be won, cub."

"Ramla…"

"I am tired. Come. Take me back to the others."

Kimfa obeyed, as she always obeyed. She nudged and redirected patiently back to the sleeping pride. They were all piled on top of each other, around the four new cubs at their center. Every so often a gust would shake raindrops from the branches overhead and the victim below would twitch and shift, kicking someone's stomach or ear. The pride grumbled and quivered in personal dreams. Kimfa wondered what it was like, to dream like they did.

Ramla never slept on her own any more. She lay down, her back pressed against the nearest lioness. Kimfa lay down close beside her. She heard the old lioness's breathing even out and deepen. Kimfa laid a gentle paw on Ramla's leg before closing her eyes. It was childish, maybe, but she thought… as long as she held the old lioness still, she wouldn't be lost to the wind.

"Come _on _Chidi." Kimfa laughed and danced a little circle. "Why not?"

"Your dreams scare Kibwe."

"Do not!" Kibwe looked just like her mother, Dayo. She was all long, elegant muscle and deep yellow fur.

Kimfa's fur was lighter still, even lighter than the yellow acacia blossoms and almost as light as the white. Her fur darkened along her back. A long stripe of yellow-brown spread along her spine and down her sides like wet sand. Both the girls had their mothers' eyes—the greeny-yellow of savanna grass at the beginning of the dry season.

The four of them were clustered on top of a small hill overlooking the stream that ran past their den site. What was only a trickle during the dry season was now a quick-moving mini-river, overflowing its banks and making footing as chancy as hunting a wildebeest alone.

Tau rolled onto his back. He was still darker than his brother. His mane was coming in thicker, too. Where Chidi's fur was the color of rust, Tau's was deep and luxurious brown. All of the lionesses admired its shade—his mother was intensely proud of her son's looks. The king lions were eager to be rid of him. Both brothers had the beginnings of dark, brown-and-black manes.

Tau stretched, revealing the little wisps of white and light brown that just barely marked the backs of his legs. Chidi was light all along his underbelly and down his legs. Kimfa thumped her head against Tau's stomach.

"You want to hear it, don't you."

"If you want to tell it, I'll listen." He twisted up and licked the side of her face. She smacked him and he smacked back. Chidi looked away.

"Alright then, I will."

Kimfa took a seat and squared her shoulders. She stared off into the distance, over their heads and into a sky that was intensely blue after the night's downpour. She could see a ridge of cloud reaching down to brush the green mountains in the distance.

"I was alone on the plain, and there was a sound in my ears—screaming like a lion in pain. It was dark, all dark, the sky gray and the grass like thick blood from a kill and snapping around my legs in a wind I couldn't feel. And across the savanna I could see a stampede of light. Silent darts and dashes rushing, rushing, I couldn't see where—and then the light broke over a boulder, and the boulder crumbled to dust. The screaming stopped. And I woke up."

Kibwe had been listening, rapt, from Tau's side. Now she relaxed. "Well _that's _not so bad."

"Have you told Ramla about it?"

Something about the way Chidi said it chafed at Kimfa. In truth, she hadn't told Ramla yet, but that was none of _his _concern.

"Why does it matter? I'll tell her when I tell her. You're not her student."

She didn't want to tell Ramla. Something about the dream had scared her. As lackluster as this dream had been compared to her others—brilliant colors, skies lit by flame, visions of lions she knew were dead and fights that were long forgotten—it was… _unsettling. _She didn't want Ramla to know about it. She didn't want Ramla to tell her what it meant, or guess at what it could mean. She didn't want that at all.

Chidi looked away again. "I'm just saying, a stampede… Could be bad. If that's what it's about."

Kimfa snorted and pounced on him. Chidi went down with a yelp. She bit his ear and tugged. "Come on, cub!" She rolled off of him and slapped his shoulder gently. "Catch me if you can!"

They raced for a while. They chased. They played, the way they used to, the way they wouldn't be able to in another month or so. But Kimfa couldn't get it out of her head. The light breaking the boulder, and Chidi's face. He'd always been the sensible one. He was a coward, but cowardice came with sense, sometimes.

She would tell Ramla. Just not yet.

That night it rained again. The storm was more savage, the night more chill. Kimfa couldn't sleep. Every lightning flash was a reminder that she'd broken her promise. Every rumble of thunder reminded her that she'd lied.

"I'm too tired to listen tonight," she had said. Ramla accepted it without question and went out to listen alone.

Kimfa stood up and picked her way through the sleeping pride. When she reached the edge of the trees, when the wind slapped cold air and rain against her face, she broke into a run. She could hear roaring, roaring on the wind.

"Ramla!"

It wasn't a lion. It didn't sound like any animal Kimfa had ever heard before.

"Ramla! Where are you?"

She reached the hill where they listened together, where Chidi and Tau and Kibwe sat and played with her.

"Ramla! Answer! Please! I need to tell you something! I need to tell you!"

She squinted through the rain, her head ringing with the roar that the wind battered against her eardrums. Ramla was a shadow, a shadow by the swollen stream, drinking from it with her old head bent low. The wind drove the lioness's scent into Kimfa's nose—no matter how she might shout, Kimfa's voice would be carried back and away. Ramla would never hear her.

Kimfa started to run down the hill. She started to run and stopped. A crack of lightning blasted across the sky and lit, like a stampede of lights, against the sudden hideous roaring avalanche that blasted down the stream bed and swept the old lioness away.

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**Disclaimer and A/N**: Since I forgot it before: "The Lion King" characters and story are all copyrighted to Disney. Characters of my own invention belong to me. I can't really say that the setting is theirs, since it's Africa, but Pride Rock etcetera belong exclusively to the Disney company.

Oh, and please review if you've got the time—it would make this girl-child very happy.


	4. A Different Sort of Hunt

Disclaimer: TLK doesn't belong to me, etcetera. Story/characters here do, etcetera. For some reason the break tags aren't working for me, so I've done dashes this time. Ah, well.

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It was time for the hunt. Kibwe had returned that morning, tired and elated, dragging the head of the antelope she brought down. Farai checked it, the bugs around it and the smell, and deemed it a fresh kill. Kibwe was part of the pride. Now it was her cousin's turn.

Kimfa looked back once as she left the den site. The lionesses were lined up, watching her. Shadows played against their fur—light to dark, savannah yellow to dusky brown. The king lions were not allowed a part in the ceremony. As changing members of the pride, they had no place at the First Hunt.

The cubs crouched between the lioness's legs, looking intimidated by the seriousness of their elders. Kimfa couldn't smile at the memory of Chidi, shivering between his mother's legs as Masozi was sent off on her hunt. She couldn't smile at much at all. The two months since Ramla's death had melted away like a dust devil on a hot day, and the pride had lived and thrived without her.

Kimfa turned away and didn't look back again.

It was the edge of the dry season, now. The grasses were just beginning to go crispy sharp against her paw pads and the air smelled like dust and shriveling things. Kimfa passed over the listening hill and splashed through the now-shallow stream. She stooped to drink for a moment. After all, she thought, it could be her last reliable water source for some time.

She'd been thinking about this moment for a month and a half, ever since she'd come out of herself enough to think at all. The dreams were out of control. She tried to stifle them, tried to smother them, but every vision she escaped sent her tumbling into another like a stampede of nightmares. Flashes of claws and fire and echoing roars and landscapes the color of bleached bone and thunderstorms. It was too much.

She stared down into the water, and her own tired face wobbled in reflection. It was no wonder Ramla seemed so weary, if this was how she'd once dreamed. Kimfa shuddered and closed her eyes.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I can't."

And she ran. She ran out into the savannah, without hunting for a trail or scenting for a herd or listening for the wind to point her way. She ran toward the bright round blossom of the sun, east. East, east, east.

She startled birds into the air and snuffed in the heady smell of their feathers and the earth they turned up searching for bugs. She surged through watering holes and shocked a zebra herd into flight. She ran until she was wheezing and the sun shot her shadow out ahead of her like a phantom on the grass. The sun was going down and all around her was the unfamiliar. She couldn't smell her pride—not Chidi, not Tau, not Kibwe or Farai or the kings.

She could smell the scent of wild dogs, and the clinging musk of a male marking its territory. The scent was old. She could smell the rising wind, with no taint of the pride's scat. She could smell coming rain. She could smell the trees, without the scent markers left by a scratching lioness. She gasped in the cooling air and realized like the shock of cold water that she was alone.

Kimfa sat down and laughed. She laughed at her own foolishness, and because she was tired, and because there was nothing else to do. Thunder grumbled overhead. She dragged herself to her feet again, looking around. The land hadn't changed at least. She made for a clump of acacia trees, feeling strange and giddy and wanting nothing more than to sleep. She curled up in the minimal shelter and shivered. The rain spattered quietly against the acacias and dripped onto her forehead. The wind picked up stray droplets and flung them in little ribbons against her back. Trembling, Kimfa slept, and didn't dream of anything she would remember.

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The first thing Kimfa noticed was the smell. The second thing she noticed was that she wasn't cold any more. She snapped upright and the lion curled up against her leapt away like lightning had cracked across its back.

"Chidi!" The word choked out of Kimfa's mouth in disbelief and frustration. "What… how…"

He was shifting from paw to paw. He refused to look at her. "Your scent was clear. It was easy to follow. You… aren't the only one who practiced for this."

"Chidi…" Kimfa felt like crying again. "Go _home. _You can't be here—you can't… You're not _supposed _to be!"

He did look at her then. A glimmer of defiance sparked in his gaze before he lowered his head again. "So it was just running off without a word to anyone, all alone, abandoning us? That's what you're plan was?"

"My…"

"I _know _you, Kimfa. You don't act the way you've been acting unless you've got something you don't want us to know. It wasn't just guilt, and _I _knew it, even if Tau didn't." There was an extra sharpness in the last sentence, a quiet sort of reprimand, an implied, _He, of all lions… _"I _know _you."

He huddled down where he sat, and Kimfa noticed for the first time how worn he looked. The sun was near the midday mark for that season—he would have been traveling since yesterday, without sleep, to have caught her up. For someone like him…

"I came to bring you back."

Kimfa blinked. "No."

"So it's what I said. You're abandoning us. Farai is relying on you to replace Ramla. She's counting on you to—"

"I'm not going to replace her! I don't want to replace her!"

"You were thrilled enough about it before," Chidi snapped. His voice grated as timidity lost out to fatigue. "Don't pretend you weren't. Kibwe fawned on you, the way you talked. Making our pride the best on the savannah, telling us where the herds would be, where they were deciding to move before they even went there."

He coughed and shook his head. "Have you even noticed how she's been the past month, you pushing her away? Tau doesn't care enough to comfort her, and she doesn't think enough of me to turn my way."

It was Kimfa's turn to look away.

"You can't come. What about you're hunt? What about Tau? He needs you—you're going together, to start a pride, to take one. He _needs _you. You can't come with me."

"He doesn't! And any pride we take won't matter if you're not in it!"

Silence. They stared at each other, Chidi looking as surprised as Kimfa felt. He scratched uselessly at the ground to hide his embarrassment. "Where are you going, anyway?"

"I…" Kimfa looked past Chidi to where the peaking sun made the air look white in the heat waves. She could lose him, maybe, if she bolted now. But it was too hot to run far without making herself sick. She sighed, and sagged back to the ground.

"I'm going to the place where Dreamer took Light One, where he talked to the gods." She mumbled it into the dust and sneezed. "I want to make it stop. I want to make the dreams stop. And there's no one else to ask."

She heard a thump as Chidi lay down, too. He stared at her hesitantly. "How're you going to find it?"

"It's in the east, isn't it? The story always says it's behind the rising sun, at the end of the world. So…" She shrugged. Saying it all aloud made it feel incredibly stupid. "So, I just keep going until I get to the end of the world."

Chidi pawed at the marks his scratching made, rubbing them away. "That's a long way to go alone. You really think you can find it?"

Kimfa growled. "I will. I _will._"

Chidi sighed and rested his head on his paws. "Then I'll come too."

"Chidi—"

He was asleep. He may have been faking, but it didn't really matter. Kimfa didn't try to wake him up.

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A/N: And finally things start to pick up! It'll be more interesting from here on out, I promise (I hope you think so, too...). Thanks for reading--please review! It will make this girl-child extremely happy!


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